


How Do You Like Your Eggs in the Morning? (I Like Mine with a Kiss)

by LadyAJ_13



Category: Endeavour (TV)
Genre: Breakfast, Domestic Fluff, M/M, Morning After
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-29
Updated: 2020-02-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:00:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22956013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyAJ_13/pseuds/LadyAJ_13
Summary: The first time he’d slapped a plate of toast down in front of Morse, he stared at him like he’d grown an extra head.
Relationships: Peter Jakes/Endeavour Morse
Comments: 24
Kudos: 103





	How Do You Like Your Eggs in the Morning? (I Like Mine with a Kiss)

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文-普通话 國語 available: [How Do You Like Your Eggs in the Morning? (I Like Mine with a Kiss) 喜欢你的早餐吗？（我愿以吻回应）](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24149701) by [slyrat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/slyrat/pseuds/slyrat)



> Unrepentant tiny fluff ficlet with a title almost longer than the story :P
> 
> Translation into Chinese now available! https://archiveofourown.org/works/24149701

The first time he’d slapped a plate of toast down in front of Morse, he stared at him like he’d grown an extra head.

It wasn’t the first time they’d done this, not at all. The first few times had been drunken, hurried, and ended in spilling out of front doors at eleven, midnight, one. The few times after that had been rising with the larks, sneaking out while the other pretended they slept through.

It had been going on for a few months - a fractious, wordless thing - the first time he opened his eyes and Morse was still there, asleep and inches away from the end of his nose. They weren’t curled around each other, thank God, but he could feel the warmth of him in the sheets, see the freckles sprinkled across his cheekbones. He could have shut his eyes tight and waited for the familiar shuffle of another body waking, careful peeling back of bedcovers and gentle footsteps walking away. But the clock read seven fifteen, which meant time to get up for work. So he had done, putting the kettle on and making toast and - well, it was only polite, wasn’t it, to feed a guest? And Peter never skipped breakfast. One of the few things you could count on as a copper were interruptions, and that meant making sure you got a decent meal when you could.

Morse had even eaten the toast eventually, given up resisting in the light of Peter’s glare even though the melted butter had almost re-solidified.

They still hadn’t mentioned it. But a switch had flicked, and now when he wakes he sees Morse’s eyes shut, or Morse’s eyes open, waiting. The few mornings after he's followed Morse home, he winces in the sunshine seeping through the gap in the curtains and turns over to wait it out.

That first wary breakfast gave way to another, and then another. It's one of the many reasons he prefers his place, because Morse will have tea and milk if you’re lucky, but at his there’s always a freshly stocked refrigerator and bread bin. Morse starts snatching at the toast as it still steams, butter still sizzling, and Peter finds himself considering jams and marmalades in the supermarket.

It’s been almost six months of not talking - or at least, no more talking than they do in the station or on the street, none of the sweet pillow talk he remembers girls seem to like, but none of the nonsense either, just easy, everyday nothing and all the happenings in the darkness pushed aside as day breaks - when he realises he forgot to buy bread. It’s an inconvenience, but a minor one, and he whips them up some scrambled eggs instead, unearthing a couple of bacon rashes he’d been saving for the weekend to go with it.

Morse looks at him like it’s magic. Like _he's_ magic.

It becomes a rush, after that. He finds himself chasing the look, forgetting bread on more than one occasion but happening to have sausages to hand, or beans, or - well pancakes _look_ showy, but they’re really not very hard at all. It doesn’t stop that look as he doles them out one by one, and he can’t help but bathe in it.

“You feeding me up, Jakes?” Morse asks one morning, cradling a glass of juice and hair sticking up in all directions. It probably looks that way, breakfast now a multi-course affair with fruit and toast and a choice of coffee or tea, and always, always something cooked that makes Morse look at him with wide, soft eyes.

“More like you’re eating me out of house and home.”

“It’s your own fault. I never used to like food all that much.”

The confession is almost as good as the look, warming right down to his toes. “But you like mine?”

Morse leans back in his chair, and smiles ruefully. “Mmm. Maybe it helps you have me work up an appetite first.”

It’s dangerously close to what they avoid ever mentioning, but it catches his breath in a good way, and he wonders suddenly why. Whether if they’d said something, if they’d defined this in any way - he could have had a relaxed, easy Morse harking back to the night before every morning, sprawled in a kitchen chair and well-fed, and looking at him with those eyes sparking.

And if so, why the hell they hadn’t taken that step.

“Maybe.”

“We should test the theory.”

His eyes widen. It’s almost eight, they’ll be late for work. But… he wouldn’t say no.

“Cook me dinner tonight?”

Oh.

_Oh._ Morse in his flat sober, Morse in his flat for the whole evening, not stealing in under cover of darkness, not here for one thing only (and perhaps a decent breakfast in the morning). Like a… like a date. If you can do such things with another man.

If ever there’s another man he could do such things with, it’s probably Morse. He clears his throat.

“Toad in the hole do you?”

And grins as he watches eyes light up.


End file.
